|
|
|
|
|
July 2012 |
Anonymous has begun dumping details from its 40GB cache of what it is claiming to be AAPT's customer data. The data appears to contain information about AAPT business customers and staff, including the names, numbers, titles and email addresses of a contact for each business agreement and how much the company spends (presumably with AAPT) each month. Thanks Gunna.
Western Digital have revealed that they will not restore all of the manufacturing capacity that they lost in the Thailand flooding. "We expect that we will not spend the full recovery capital that we indicated of $650 million now, because, obviously, we are not bringing the capacity back to the same level. We earmarked that number at about $400 million as oppose to the $650 million," said Wolfgang Nickl, chief financial officer of Western Digital, during a conference call with financial community. Is this a ploy to keep average selling prices high?
Extremetech take a look at the Intel Xeon Phi, a 50 core processor that some of you may originally remember as Intel's aborted 'Larrabee' performance GPU attempt.
Following on from Valve CEO Gabe Newell's Windows 8 "catastrophe" comment, Blizzard Vice President Rob Pardo has tweeted "not awesome for Blizzard either." Chiming in with Gabe's little chorus was Blizzard executive vice president, Rob Pardo, who took the opportunity to state in a tweet that Windows 8 is "not awesome for Blizzard either." This has us wondering if Microsoft's store fees extend to subscription-based services and is treading on the firm's toes a little, or if there's something in general about the platform from a development point-of-view that the firm isn't too happy with.
According to a leaked RIAA report, the defunct SOPA and PIPA legislation would not likely have been an effective tool for preventing music piracy. Contrary to the endless lobbying and subsequent defending of the now-dead SOPA and PIPA frameworks, a leaked report shows that earlier this year the RIAA’s Deputy General Counsel admitted that the legislation was “not likely to have been effective tool” for dealing with music piracy. All efforts are now being put behind the “six strikes” plan.
Ubisofts Uplay DRM was found to include a rootkit. The discovery was made by Tavis Ormandy, and information security engineer at Google, when he installed Assassin’s Creed: Revelations on his laptop. He noticed that during the installation Uplay installed a browser plug-in that allows any website to gain access to your machine through a backdoor and take control of it. To their credit, Ubisoft quickly responded to the issue by updating Uplay. Still, the rootkit should not have been there in the first place.
Foreign price comparisons on IT goods and software often come up in the forums, particularly given the strength of the Aussie Dollar. Trevor let us know that the Australian Information Industry Association, an industry lobby group, recently dismissed such concerns as "not useful". Yeah.. Righto..
Apple has announced that its latest Mac OS X version, Mountain Lion, was downloaded three million times in four days, thereby making it the most successful OS in the company's history. Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing, said, “Just a year after the incredibly successful introduction of Lion, customers have downloaded Mountain Lion over three million times in just four days, making it our most successful release ever.”
How much would it cost to be Batman in real life? Apparently it would cost at least $682 million. Thanks Adam.
Tuesday Morning Reviews
(0 Comments)
(link)
Tuesday, 31-July-2012 10:00:09 (GMT +10) - by booj
|
Motherboards & CPUs:
Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H on Anandtech.
ASRock Z77 Pro3 (Intel Z77) Motherboard on TweakTown.
Graphics Cards:
MSI GTX 680 Lightning on VRZone.
HIS Radeon HD 7970 X IceQ X2 Turbo 3GB Overclocked on TweakTown.
Storage:
QNAP TurboNAS TS-119P II NAS Server on NikkTech.
OCZ Agility 4 256GB SSD on The SSD Review.
Western Digital VelociRaptor (WD1000DHTZ) 1TB HDD on Tech ARP.
Synology DiskStation DS712+ on TestFreaks.
Power Supplies:
Corsair HX850 V2 850w on techPowerUp.
Seasonic Platinum 1000W on Legit Reviews.
Corsair HX850 Professional Gold on Vortez.
Corsair HX850 Gold on Hardware Secrets.
Portables & Mobiles:
Google Nexus 7 Tablet on t-break.
Google Nexus 7 Tablet on HotHardware.
Input etc:
Roccat Savu Gaming mouse on Rbmods.
Sharkoon DarkGlider Gaming Mouse on eTeknix.
Misc:
Cooler Master Storm Sonuz Headset on Benchmark Reviews.
Ebode IP Vision 38 Camera on Madshrimps.
Epson WorkForce Pro WP-4590 Multifunction Printer on Futurelooks.
BitFenix & Mwave Contest
(0 Comments)
(link)
Monday, 30-July-2012 22:04:58 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
BitFenix and Mwave have teamed up to give away a case to an OCAU reader. It's one of their new Prodigy cases, and you can also win some Alchemy cables. Details in the thread:
Click for the thread!
Monday Morning Reviews
(0 Comments)
(link)
Monday, 30-July-2012 02:23:28 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Motherboard & CPU:
AMD Athlon II X4 641, Athlon II X4 651 CPUs on iXBTLabs.
ASUS P8Z77-I Deluxe Mini-ITX (Intel Z77) on Tweaktown.
Portable & Prebuilt:
ARCTIC MC101-A10 HTPC on Vortez.
Orange San Diego - Intel Inside Android Smartphone on HWHeaven.
Google Nexus 7 Tablet on LegitReviews.
Plextor M3 Pro SSD on XSReviews.
Giada A51 Ultra Mini PC on Pro-Clockers.
Shuttle Barebone XS35GTA V3 on MadShrimps.
Audio Visual:
Sennheiser VMX200 Bluetooth Headset on TBreak.
Razer Tiamat 7.1 Headset on GamingNexus.
Those 27-inch IPS displays from Korea are for real on TechReport.
Cases:
Diablotek Abyss White ATX Mid Tower on TestFreaks.
Silverstone Fortress FT03 Mini on TechPowerUp.
Cooler Master HAF XM mid-tower on MadShrimps.
Memory:
G.SKILL TridentX 2400 MHz F3-2400C10D-8GTX on Bjorn3D.
Mushkin 997070 16GB & 994071 32GB Redline on OCClub.
Misc:
Gigabyte Radeon HD 7970 Super OverClock video card on TechSpot.
Gigabyte Osmium mechanical keyboard on Guru3D.
Reeven Six Eyes Fan Controller on ThinkComputers.
XFX PRO 650 W XXX Edition Power Supply on HWHeaven.
Buffalo WHR-G300N V2 + WLI-UC-G450 wireless routers on RBMods.
Guns of Icarus Online PC game on eTeknix.
Hitachi Deskstar 5K4000 4TB Hard Disk Drive on Tweaktown.
Argh, really itchy leech bite on my ankle! That'll teach me to leave the house. Thanks to Schnappy, Cront and Jason this week.
     
     
     
     
And if you're after more, check out this Wiki page which lists ALL "misc pics" news posts from the archive.
Matt sent in some info about iRacing, a racing sim game - and some amazing paintjobs! There's a pretty active iRacing contingent on the OCAU forums. Recently it's started to gel in to a more organised bunch which has resulted in a pretty impressive suite of OCAU-themed liveries being produced:
click for more OCAU paintjobs!
There's a lot of effort been put in there by members Krusty and Rainy. There's also an iRacing special on at the moment for 6 months free so a great chance to boost up the OCAU rep!
Aaron reminded us that it's SysAdmin Day today! Let’s face it, System Administrators get no respect 364 days a year. This is the day that all fellow System Administrators across the globe, will be showered with expensive sports cars and large piles of cash in appreciation of their diligent work.
AAPT have confirmed that hackers have taken customer data in protest against the data retention proposals. AAPT CEO David Yuile told Fairfax Media the security incident occurred at 9:30pm on Wednesday. He says the ISP is investigating the breach and will contact affected customers. There's earlier story with some other details here.
Gabe Newell has declared Windows 8 a gaming catastrophe, driving Valve to embrace Linux. Newell is not a disinterested third party. Valve makes money from the commission it takes on Steam sales. Windows 8, with its built-in Windows Store, challenges that revenue source. Features such as Xbox LIVE integration could make the Windows Store and Windows 8 a more appealing platform for gamers and developers alike than Steam. However, the other aspect of the Store—the closed and controlled nature—also concerns him.
Oblong_Cheese sent word of a forum under legal attack. On February 24, Monster Energy Company sent a cease & desist letter to MonsterFishKeepers in regards to their use of the marks MonsterFishKeepers, and the MonsterFishKeepers “M” symbol in connection with clothing, accessories, and stickers.
Here's a cool tank-inspired PC case. Not much text info but lots of detailed pictures in the worklog.
Canon have an interesting new compact camera which can use full-size lenses. What you’re looking at is Canon’s latest golden child, the EOS M. What is it you ask? It’s essentially all the goodness of the EOS 650D crammed into a great looking compact body. I have a big old 400D and a pile of lenses, but I find myself using the tiny S100 virtually all the time now. Discussion of this new body here.
There's a new religion in Sweden, based around file sharing. Kopimism - the name comes from a Swedish spelling of the words ''copy me'' - claims more than 8000 faithful who have signed up on the church's website. It has applied for the right to perform marriages and to receive subsidies awarded to religious organisations by the state, and it has tried, thus far unsuccessfully, to buy a church building, even though most church activities are conducted online.
Supplanter noticed the Humble Music Bundle, which is like the game bundles we've seen before, but with DRM-free MP3 and FLAC music from several bands. You choose exactly how much of your purchase goes to support the musicians, as well as the Child's Play Charity and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, two non-profit organziations doing great work in the world.
Friday Morning Reviews
(0 Comments)
(link)
Friday, 27-July-2012 10:13:42 (GMT +10) - by booj
|
Graphics Cards:
XFX Radeon HD7850 2GB Black Edition on Legit Reviews.
HIS Radeon HD7850 2GB Video Card Overclocked on TweakTown.
Storage:
Corsair Force GS 240GB SSD on Guru3D.
Corsair Force GS 240GB SSD on Vortez.
Intel 910 800GB PCI Express Solid State Drive Enterprise RAID on TweakTown.
Kingston 16GB DataTraveler Locker+ G2 USB Drives on Legit Reviews.
HGST Ultrastar 7K4000 4TB SATA III HDD on NikkTech.
Portables & Mobiles:
Motorola Atrix HD Smartphone on Techspot.
Toshiba Satellite U845W on TechReviewSource.
Google Nexus 7 Tablet and Jelly Bean Review on PC Perspective.
Acer Aspire Timeline Ultra M5 on TechReviewSource.
Cases:
Silverstone GD07 HTPC Chassis on eTeknix.
Antec ISK110 VESA ITX Case on Funky Kit Review.
Rosewill R5 Mid Tower Case on ThinkComputers.
XION XON-980 Case on Overclockers Club.
Cooler Master Elite 120 Advanced on Hardware Secrets.
Input etc:
Gigabyte Aivia Krypton Gaming Mouse on techPowerUp.
Razer Taipan Gaming Mouse on HardwareHeaven.
Thrustmaster T500 RS Racing Wheel & Pedals + Ferrari F1 Wheel on eTeknix.
Cooling:
Noctua NH-L12 CPU Cooler on Techreaction.
Thermaltake WATER2.0 Performer CPU Cooler on Hardware Secrets.
ARCTIC Accelero Hybrid AIO Video Card Cooler on TweakTown.
Memory:
Crucial Ballistix Tactical 16GB Dual Channel on Hardcoreware.
Patriot Viper 3 Black Mamba Edition DDR3 on Vortez.
Misc:
FSP AURUM Pro 1000W Power Supply on APH Networks.
ASUS P8Z77-V Thunderbolt Motherboard on Benchmark Reviews.
Gabe Newell, the co-founder and managing director of Valve, gave a rare interview at Casual Connect, an annual videogame conference in Seattle. He is not a fan of Windows 8 it seems, labeling the upcoming OS as a "catastrophe". Last night, at a dinner sponsored by Covert & Co., Google Ventures and Perkins Coie, Newell unveiled some of his most quirky and secretive projects in an interview onstage with Ed Fries, former VP of game publishing at Microsoft.
On the topic of Valve, the company has released its June Steam Hardware & Software Survey.
Australia will publish images captured by soon-to-launch satellite Landsat 8 online, in close to real time, for free. “We want to make as much data freely available as possible,” says Jeff Kingwell, the Section Leader of GA’s National Earth Observation Group. “We will move towards a system where we are taking Landsat data in, in near real time.” Data will be corrected to make it usable, then published, all in as close to real time as is practical.
At long last, MSI have released Afterburner 2.2.3 which features voltage adjustment controls for its 680 Lightning and 670 Power Edition models. However, as Guru3D reports, there is more to the story. For a while now lots of people have been eagerly awaiting an update of MSI AfterBurner in which software voltage control is unlocked. With this article I wanted to digg a little deeper and talk you though the challenges and difficulties of opening up this function.
Dasuperham sent in this funny, but still somewhat disturbing story about a cyber attack on Iranian nuclear computer systems. According to one security expert, a computer virus has attacked computer systems in Iran and forced them to play heavy metal, at full volume, during the middle of the night. The computer worm reportedly compromises the machines, and makes them repeat the track 'Thunderstruck' by AC/DC, ad nauseum. Now if they had have used Justin Beiber...
Morris Chang, the CEO of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has indicated they may dedicate a whole fab to serve just one client. Who else but Apple? "Now remember, we made our mark in serving many customers. In fact, that’s a really part of our secret source of success. The ability to serve many customers to their satisfaction and we’ll still will retain that capability, but there are customers that are getting bigger and bigger. So it makes sense that we dedicate a whole fab or even more than a whole fab to just one customer."
If you buy a Xbox 360 Elite HDMI cable, you supposedly get the bonus of anti-virus protection.. Errr OK.. This “Xbox 360 Elite HDMI cable” should be just like any other HDMI cable in the planet, right? Wrong! According to the box, it’s a “100 per cent Mylar” double shield 1.3c grade cable with anti-virus protection to reduce virus noises and to obtain perfect image transmission”. Yes, really.
TweakTown have two articles on traveling with technology. In the last part, we covered what to expect from Wi-Fi, power and tips for cameras. This part will cover several more important considerations. Namely, cell phones, communicating with home and keeping track of the time difference will all be dealt with in this article.
Apple has released its latest financial results, including a fiscal Q3 net profit of a lazy $8.8 Billion. Could Apple be a victim of its own success? While the company's latest quarterly results show double-digit growth in both revenue and profits, with iPhone and iPad sales both substantially higher than last year, Reuters reports that Wall Street is disappointed with the numbers. Analysts reportedly expected higher revenue and a greater number of iPhone shipments.
There's plenty of Apple news today. The company has released its new OSX Mountain Lion operating system for Macs. Gizmodo have a look at it here.
Interesting Forum Threads
(0 Comments)
(link)
Wednesday, 25-July-2012 09:31:12 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Here's a snapshot of what's going on in some of the forums. You can also find new interesting things you might have missed via the Who's Online page, the New Posts page and the Live forum view. Also try the Today's Posts link (find it on the Quick Links menu) and the handy Who Quoted Me? feature.
Nvidia's new Demo "A New Dawn" in Video Cards & Monitors.
3M Novec Submerged PC in Extreme & Water Cooling.
I'm a gamer and I haven't upgraded my CPU in 6 years in Overclocking & Hardware.
Google Nexus 7: Tech Talk, Apps and Flashing (and Jelly Beans) in Google Android (OS & Devices)
OpenELEC (XBMC Linux Distro) Discussion in HTPC.
Audio Fundamentals by Matt Mayfield in PC Audio.
For those who are sick of creative drivers, give the PAX drivers a go in PC Audio.
Long Range WiFi in Networking, Telephony & Internet.
[HOWTO] Google Apps for Business in Business & Enteprise.
Looking for liquid level switch in Electronics & Electrics.
Rebuilding 18V Ryobi NiCd as LiION in Electronics & Electrics.
The 7 billion inhabitants in Science.
Kissing device lets you send a long-distance smooch in Science.
$21 trillion hoard hidden offshore by global elite in Current Events.
Piracy advert used stolen music in Current Events.
The Fate of Amelia Earhart Reconstructed in Current Events.
Roadkill Experiment Shows That Six Percent of Drivers Are Sadistic Animal Killers in Motoring.
Lap times from every car driven by the Stig in Motoring.
Driven: Koenigsegg: Sweden's Hypercar in Motoring.
Town introduces "female" parking spots in Motoring.
Technology Conspiracy in The Pub.
Wednesday Morning Reviews
(0 Comments)
(link)
Wednesday, 25-July-2012 09:12:52 (GMT +10) - by booj
|
Motherboards & CPUs:
Asus Sabertooth Z77 on Xbit Labs.
Gigabyte Z77X-UD5H WiFi on Vortez.
Gigabyte Z77X-UP5 TH First Look on VR-Zone.
Asus P8Z77-V Premium on OCaholic.
Biostar TZ77XE4 on Anandtech.
Graphics Cards:
MSI GeForce GTX 680 Lightning on [H]ardOCP.
HIS Radeon 7870 IceQ 2GB on Bit-Tech.
Storage:
Zalman U3M16 16GB SLC Flash Drive on TweakTown.
Kingston Wi-Drive 64GB on Bjorn3D.
Corsair Force GS 240 GB on techPowerUp.
Kingston HyperX 3K 240GB on HiTech Legion.
Cases:
Azza Genesis 9000 Super Tower on Pro-Clockers.
CM Storm Stryker on Custom PC Review.
Portable & Prebuilt:
CyberPowerPC ZEUS Thunder 2500 SE System on Legit Reviews.
Samsung Galaxy S III (I747) Android Smartphone on MEGATechNews.
Power Supplies:
Rosewill FORTRESS-650 Power Supply on Hardware Secrets.
NZXT Hale82 750W on JonnyGURU.
Cooling:
Thermalright Archon SB-E CPU Cooler on NikKTech.
Phanteks PH-F140TS 140mm Cooling Fan on ThinkComputers.
Misc:
Gigabyte Aivia Osmium Gaming Keyboard on Ninjalane.
G.Skill TridentX 2x8GB DDR3-2400MHz CL10 on OCaholic.
Wacom Intuos5 Graphics Tablet on Everything USB.
Western Digital My Net N900 HD Dual-Band Router on HotHardware.
Tuesday Afternoon
(4 Comments)
(link)
Tuesday, 24-July-2012 16:47:26 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Anonymous, or people acting using that name, have apparently attacked some QLD government websites in protest of the data retention proposals. Those policies would see the government able to store and access up to two years worth of data about individuals and businesses, and enjoy easier access to social networks without user consent, in the name of national security. Anonymous has claimed responsibility for the defacements in an email sent to News.com.au, which reports the attack was timed to coincide with the appearance of Prime Minister Julia Gillard in a Google+ Hangout.
The Google Nexus 7 has attracted a lot of attention lately, and reax spotted this amusing video montage of the unboxing process, which seems to not be as simple as you might expect. For many, the most satisfying part of trying a brand new gadget is unboxing it. The Nexus 7 is no exception: the sturdy box and high-grade tape definitely make it playful - perhaps too challenging!
We reported on Vodafone earlier, but Telstra have enabled Sydney rail tunnel coverage recently too. The first stage of the project covers the North Shore line from Central to the Harbour Bridge, including the busier stations Town Hall and Wynard. For Sydney commuters on the North Shore line that means up to an extra 20 minutes a day in which they can do email, they can text, they can tweet, hey, maybe even make a phone call.
Choice Magazine have submitted info to a parliamentary enquiry, stating Australians pay 50% more than American shoppers for many IT goods. New research carried out by the group found price differences across a range of IT products including iTunes downloads, PC games, personal and business software, Wii console games and computer hardware. "In Australia you pay, on average, 52 per cent more than an American consumer will for the same 50 top iTunes songs," says Choice head of campaigns, Matt Levey.
This next video is a couple of months old, but it shows how modern CPUs are made by GlobalFoundries.
Google have enabled street view of Antarctica, thanks mpot. With the help of the Australian Antarctic Division, Google managed to capture 360-degree images of some of Antarctica’s most significant landmarks as part of the World Wonders Project. Landmarks captured by the web giant for your pleasure include Scott’s Hut from the early Antarctic expeditions, the South Pole Telescope and the Ceremonial South Pole.
A Dutch user of Microsoft's SkyDrive has had his account yanked, demonstrating some of the risks of integrated cloud services. Dutch user ‘WingsOfFury’ had uploaded 9 GB of content, and suddenly found his Windows Live account suspended, meaning he lost access to his Hotmail, Xbox Live, could not purchase apps and could of course not upload anything to SkyDrive.
If you see one of these power boards suddenly appear in your office, be concerned. To summarize that for you, the Power Pwn can launch remotely-activated Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Ethernet attacks to identify network weaknesses. You can send commands via a convenient Web interface, accessible through the unit's built-in 3G radio, or directly to the device via text message. In fact, if you're feeling really lazy, you can use Apple's Siri voice-recognition software to send it instructions.
Lenovo's CEO has given away his $3M USD bonus to his employees. The CEO took the $3 million bonus and distributed it among 10,000 junior level employees. Among the employees to receive a piece of the pie were receptionists, production line workers, and assistants.
Two more videos, with a spacey theme. Firstly this stunning night views from the ISS, and also, a trailer for the upcoming new Red Dwarf series!
Tuesday Morning Reviews
(1 Comments)
(link)
Tuesday, 24-July-2012 10:42:43 (GMT +10) - by booj
|
Cases:
NZXT Phantom 410 Case on Ninjalane.
Fractal Design Define R4 Black Pearl Mid-Tower on TweakTown.
Power Supplies:
OCZ Fatal1ty 1000W PSU on Guru3D.
Rosewill Fortress 550w PSU on techPowerUp.
Enermax Platimax 1000W PSU on PC Perspective.
Enermax Triathlor 550W PSU on HardwareHeaven.
Cooler Master Silent Pro M2 1500W on Techreaction.
Input etc:
SteelSeries Diablo III Mouse on Madshrimps.
ROCCAT Isku Illuminated Gaming Keyboard on ThinkComputers.
TTeSports Black Element Gaming Mouse on Metku.
CM Storm Trigger Keyboard on Hardware Secrets.
Emprex Keyboards on eTeknix.
Storage:
OCZ Vertex 4 128GB SSD on Funky Kit Review.
OCZ RevoDrive Hybrid 1TB PCI-Express SSD on eTeknix.
Kingston SSDNow V200 128GB SSD on Legit Reviews.
Plextor PX-M5S 256GB SSD on TweakTown.
Mushkin Atlas 240GB mSATA SSD on The SSD Review.
Audio:
Corsair Vengeance 2000 Wireless Headset on Vortez.
Corsair Vengeance 1500 Gaming Headset on TechwareLabs.
Misc:
Lamptron Fan Controller FC10 on Pro-Clockers.
Lenovo ThinkVision LT2323z Monitor on TechReviewSource.
TP-LINK TL-SF1008P 8-port 10/100Mbps Desktop PoE switch on NikKTech.
Gigabyte Sniper M3 Motherboard on HardwareLOOK.
Simmtronics Xpad Tablet on t-break.
Photography Gallery
(1 Comments)
(link)
Monday, 23-July-2012 19:32:48 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Here's a quick snapshot of what people are up to in our Photography Gallery forum.
OCAU - Bear Cottage needs our help
(2 Comments)
(link)
Monday, 23-July-2012 12:20:12 (GMT +10) - by booj
|
Ozdealer has brought to our attention the very sad story of Talin, who tragically passed away at the age of 6 from an inoperable brainstem tumor.
Talin spent time at the Bear Cottage, a palliative care centre in Manly. Bear Cottage is the only facility in the country that allows families to stay with their children in the final stages of their life. Bear Cottage is wholly funded by donations, and families that use the Cottage do not pay anything to stay.
Please visit this thread to see the ways you can help. OCAU is proud to support this very worthy cause.
Qantas will offer iPads to all of its passengers on its fleet of Boeing 767 aircraft. Yes, even coach if you were wondering. “Following the successful trial of our QStreaming service this year, we will partner with Panasonic and use their eXW solution to provide over 200 hours of on-demand in-flight entertainment content via iPads to every passenger in Business and Economy travelling on our B767 fleet,” Qantas Domestic CEO Lyell Strambi said in a statement.
PC Perspective have an article about building a legacy gaming PC. The reward for this modest budget and effort is warm-and-fuzzy nostalgia and the ability to buy and play any older game that you'd like rather than just those available on GOG. I’m no longer reliant on digital downloads for my classic gaming experience. I can buy a 90s-era games and enjoy them. There are plenty of these at thrift stores for just a few bucks each.
[H]ardOCP have an article examining PCI Express 2.0 vs 3.0 gaming performance. Wondering about upgrading to the new Ivy Bridge CPU and PCI Express 3.0 platform? Curious to know if you'll be gaining or losing performance? We compare single, dual-GPU, triple-GPU, single, and multiple display configurations on Ivy Bridge PCIe 3.0 and Sandy Bridge on PCIe 2.0 platforms.
The USB 3.0 promoter group has published a specification for USB power delivery amounts of up to 100w. The intention is to provide more charging flexibility and a wider range of USB bus powered devices. The new specification will require upgraded electronically detectable “USB Power Delivery certified cables” for the sake of safety. It will be possible to power a laptop and external drives that used to require their own power supply through the new USB bus power capability.
There's a bit of Frankenstein in this one: Bioengineers have made an artificial jellyfish using silicone and muscle cells from a rat’s heart. The synthetic creature, dubbed a medusoid, looks like a flower with eight petals. When placed in an electric field, it pulses and swims exactly like its living counterpart. “Morphologically, we’ve built a jellyfish. Functionally, we’ve built a jellyfish. Genetically, this thing is a rat,” says Kit Parker, a biophysicist at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who led the work.
Mozilla have released a version of their upcoming Firefox operating system for beta testing. Those of you ready to move to the next big operating system for your phone, desktop, laptop, tablet, or whatever you’ve got on hand will be glad to know that Mozilla has moved to the next stage: beta testing for their Firefox OS. This operating system is made first for phones and tablets, but is available for testing only on your OS X, Windows, or Linus machine for the moment. Developers will be able to begin testing out whatever they’ve got on hand immediately.
Linux Kernel 3.5 has been released. See here for a full list of changes.
South Korea has become the first country in the world to pass the 100% Internet penetration mark. South Korea’s Internet is known for being one of the fastest in the world, and the country has grabbed another accolade after it become the world’s first to see high-speed Internet technologies pass 100 percent domestic penetration. Now.. where's that NBN..
Betanews has a (p)review of the Microsoft Office 2013 suite.
Bastidge Child sent in this cool virtual tour of the now retired Space Shuttle Discovery. Cheers!
Saturday Morning Reviews
(2 Comments)
(link)
Saturday, 21-July-2012 08:14:32 (GMT +10) - by booj
|
Graphics Cards:
MSI R7870 HAWK Review and CrossFire Performance on PC Perspective.
EVGA GeForce GTX 680 Classified on Anandtech.
Sapphire HD 7870 Flex GHz Edition on Hexus.
Motherboards & CPUs
ASUS Maximus V Extreme on Guru3D.
ASRock Z77 Extreme9 Intel LGA 1155 on techPowerUp.
ASUS P8Z77-I Deluxe Mini-ITX Motherboard on [H]ardOCP.
Storage:
OCZ Vertex 3 Max IOPS 120GB SSD on TweakTown.
Patriot EP Pro 32 GB SDXC/SDHC Card on Overclockers Club.
Kingston HyperX 3K 240GB on HardwareLOOK.
Intel 910 Series 800GB PCI-E SSD on Hardware Canucks.
Cases:
Fractal Design Define R4 Case on Hardware Secrets.
Fractal Design Define R4 Case on Anandtech.
Power Supplies:
SilverStone Strider Gold Evolution 1000-watt on TweakTown.
In Win GreenMe 750W on Hexus.
Portable & Mobile
HP Envy Sleekbook 6 on t-break.
Samsung Series 5 Ultrabook on HardwareLOOK.
Samsung Focus 2 Windows Phone on HotHardware.
Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 Android Tablet on Hardware Heaven.
Misc:
ROCCAT Isku Gaming Keyboard on Bjorn3D.
Western Digital Live Digital MultiMedia Player on Benchmark Reviews.
NZXT Aperture M Multi-Media Hub on Pro-Clockers.
Thermalright HR-02 Macho Quiet/Fanless Cooler on silentpcreview.
Corsair Vengeance 2000 Wireless Gaming Headset on ThinkComputers.
Another week goes whizzing by..
     
     
     
     
And if you're after more, check out this Wiki page which lists ALL "misc pics" news posts from the archive.
OCAU Mugs - Now Available (again!)
(7 Comments)
(link)
Friday, 20-July-2012 13:44:38 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Due to popular demand, OCAU Mugs are available again! Details in the thread:
Click for ordering details!
Microsoft have announced October 26 as launch date for Windows 8. Over the past few weeks, we've seen Microsoft progressively narrow its release time frame for Windows 8. First it was this fall, and then it became late October. Now, we finally have a final release date set in stone: October 26, 2012.
Microsoft also released their latest financial results. The company reported a record fourth quarter revenue of $18.06 billion, but did suffer a net loss over the last three months of $492 million. While the net loss was in stark contrast the net profit of $5.87 billion from the same time last year, Microsoft is still optimistic heading towards the launch of Windows 8 and its sibling mobile platform.
Apple has been ordered by a judge to publish a notice on its U.K. website and in British newspapers alerting people to a ruling that Samsung didn’t copy designs for the iPad. The notice should outline the July 9 London court decision that Samsung’s Galaxy tablets don’t infringe Apple’s registered designs, Judge Colin Birss said yesterday. It should be posted on Apple’s U.K. home page for six months and published in newspapers and magazines to correct any impression the South Korea-based company was copying Apple’s product, Birss said.
What may be the world's first cybernetic hate crime has taken place in a French McDonalds. Steve Mann, the "father of wearable computing," has been physically assaulted while visiting a McDonalds in Paris, France. The Canadian university professor was at the restaurant with his family when three different McDonalds employees took exception to his "Digital Eye Glass" device and attempted to forcibly remove it from his head. Mann was then physically removed from the store by the employees, along with having his support documentation destroyed.
Dropbox, the popular cloud-storage service, is investigating whether a security breach is to blame for a recent wave of spam e-mail sent to users. The company is investigating internally and has brought in an outside team of experts "to make sure we leave no stone unturned," according to a post from an employee on the Dropbox forums. "While we haven't had any reports of unauthorized activity on Dropbox accounts, we've taken a number of precautionary steps and continue to work around the clock to make sure your information is safe," the post says.
An $800 million deal between NBN Co and Optus has been approved by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). The agreement involves steady payments to Optus for migrating its customers to the National Broadband Network (NBN) as and when the service becomes available in areas currently serviced by Optus’ HFC service. The initial migration is expected to commence in 2014 and will take up to four years to complete.
A Taiwanese teen collapsed and died after playing Diablo III for 40 hours. The 18-year-old identified by only his surname, Chuang, booked a private room at the cafe in Tainan, southern Taiwan, around noon on July 13 and played for nearly two days without eating, the United Daily News broadsheet reported on Tuesday. On the morning of July 15, an attendant entered the room and found Chuang resting on a table. After the attendant woke him, he stood, took a few steps and then collapsed, the report said.
A major spam botnet, supposedly responsible for 20% of the world's spam has been taken down. The servers that operated the botnet were based in Russia, Panama, and the Netherlands and were estimated to be in control of 100,000 infected "zombie" PCs or bots. According to researchers, Grum was ranked as the third largest network behind the Cutwail and Lethic spam botnets.
Speaking of spam.. Email spam can now be reported to the ACMA (Australian Communications and Media Authority) by forwarding the message to the Spam Intelligence Database on report@submit.spam.acma.gov.au. Previously you had to fill out a form, but now it's easier.
Gigabyte are running a SuperPi competition at HWBot. You must use the Ivy Bridge platform, a Gigabyte motherboard and run the processor no higher than 4500Mhz. Have fun!!
Friday Morning Reviews
(0 Comments)
(link)
Friday, 20-July-2012 07:15:48 (GMT +10) - by booj
|
Motherboards & CPUs:
3rd Generation Intel Core i5 & i7 Processors on iXBT Labs.
Gigabyte GA-E350N-USB3 mini-ITX & 1.6GHz AMD E-350 APU on PCSTATS.
MSI Z77A-GD65 on VR-Zone.
Graphics Cards:
HIS Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition 2GB Video Card Overclocked on TweakTown.
ASUS GTX 680 DirectCU II TOP on t-break.
Portable:
Origin EON 11-S Gaming Notebook on PC Perspective.
Asus Zenbook Prime UX31A-DB51 on TechReviewSource.
2012 MacBook Pro on Anandtech.
Cooling:
Spire TME III CPU Cooler on Hardware Secrets.
Xigmatek Dark Knight SD1283 Night Hawk Edition on Hardware Heaven.
Thermaltake Water 2.0 Pro and Performer on PureOverclock.
Storage:
Super Talent ST1 and ST2 USB 3.0 Flash Drive on Legit Reviews.
Synology DS212j NAS on techPowerUp.
TCS Proteus Plus 256GB Military/Industrial Rugged SSD on TheSSDReview.
Western Digital Red Series NAS Specific HDD on TweakTown.
Synology DiskStation DS112+, DS112 & DS112j on Legion Hardware.
LaCie 2big NAS on Computing on Demand.
120-128GB Solid State Drive Roundup on circuitREMIX.
OCZ Vertex 4 256 GB on techPowerUp.
Input etc:
Tt eSPORTS Saphira Gaming Mouse on XSReviews.
TTesports Theron Gaming mouse on Rbmods.
Cases:
Corsair Carbide 300R Case on Neoseeker.
Bitfenix Shinobi XL Full Tower on XtremeComputing.
Misc:
In Win GreenMe 650 W Power Supply on Hardware Secrets.
Parrot Zik Wireless Headphones on t-break.
Forum Projects
(1 Comments)
(link)
Thursday, 19-July-2012 15:06:12 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Here's some interesting projects and reviews from people in the forums:
Thursday Morning Reviews
(1 Comments)
(link)
Thursday, 19-July-2012 05:13:36 (GMT +10) - by booj
|
Graphics Cards:
Sapphire HD 7970 6GB Toxic Edition on Overclockers Club.
Sapphire HD 7870 FleX Edition on TechwareLabs.
ASUS GTX680 Direct CU II TOP on Bjorn3D.
MSI GeForce GTX 680 Lightning on Benchmark Reviews.
Sapphire HD 7950 Flex 3 GB on techPowerUp.
Motherboard & CPU:
Gigabyte Z77 G.1 Sniper 3 on PureOverclock.
ASRock Z77E-ITX Mini-ITX (Intel Z77) Motherboard on TweakTown.
Cases:
Xigmatek Elysium Super-Tower Full Tower Chassis on eTeknix.
Cubitek Magic Cube AIO on techPowerUp.
NZXT Switch 810 Special Edition Gunmetal Case on ThinkComputers.
Storage:
QNAP TurboNAS TS-869 Pro 8-Bay NAS on eTeknix.
Kingston SSDNow V200 on PureOverclock.
Micron C400 256GB 6Gbps mSATA SSD on The SSD Review.
Kingston 64GB DataTraveler HyperX 3.0 on Vortez.
Audio:
Corsair Vengeance 2000 Wireless Headset on Everything USB.
Logitech Mini Boombox Bluetooth Speaker on TweakTown.
Portable & Mobile:
Samsung Galaxy S III on TechReviewSource.
Dell XPS 13 Ultrabook - Model L321X on Funky Kit.
HP Envy Sleekbook 6z on TechReviewSource.
Power Supplies:
IN WIN GreenMe 650W Power Supply on Legit Reviews.
Xigmatek Tauro 700 W Power Supply on Hardware Secrets.
Cooler Master Silent Pro M2 1500-watt Power Supply on TweakTown.
Corsair GS800 on Guru3D.
Misc:
G.Skill TridentX 2666C11-13-13-35 Kit on Madshrimps.
RaidSonic ICY BOX IB-PL550D 500Mbit/s Powerline Adapter Kit on NikKTech.
OnLive Cloud Gaming Console on eTeknix.
Noctua NH-L12 CPU Cooler on Neoseeker.
Wednesday Afternoon
(1 Comments)
(link)
Wednesday, 18-July-2012 16:41:25 (GMT +10) - by booj
|
Former Google executive Marissa Mayer has been appointed as the new CEO of Yahoo. Yahoo Inc. reached inside the ranks of rival Google Inc. in its latest changing of the guard, appointing longtime Web-search executive Marissa Mayer as its new chief and returning the struggling Internet company to a leader with deep technology experience. The appointment showed how Yahoo, a onetime pioneer of Web search and online advertising, is going back to its Silicon Valley Internet roots.
Microsoft have released a preview version of its upcoming Office 2013 software. It's been about three years since Microsoft unveiled a new version of Office, and particularly with Windows 8 just months away from dropping, the software has been well overdue for an upgrade. Today, Redmond unveiled the latest edition -- Office 2013.
Valve have officially announced that Steam and a port of Left 4 Dead 2 are coming to Linux, beginning with Ubuntu. The goal of the Steam client project is a fully-featured Steam client running on Ubuntu 12.04. We’ve made good progress this year and now have the Steam client running on Ubuntu with all major features available. We’re still giving attention and effort to minor features but it’s a good experience at the moment. In the near future, we will be setting up an internal beta focusing on the auto-update experience and compatibility testing.
AMD have announced price cuts for several models in their 7xxx range of GPU's. The Radeon HD 7970, Radeon HD 7950, and Radeon HD 7870 are all getting official price cuts. The 7970 will be dropping from $479 to $429, the 7950 from $399 to $349, and the 7870 from $349 to $299. (Prices shown in USD)
This one is kind of obvious isn't it? One Secret That Stops Hackers: Girlfriends. While conducting research for her criminology Ph.D., Kirwan interviewed about 20 hackers and found that the majority stopped hacking due to their changing life circumstances. "The chances are by the time they turn 18 or 19 they'll age out, and if they haven't stopped then, by the time they get married, settle down, and have kids, they won't have time to do this type of behavior anyway."
The Pirate Party of Australia has failed in its bid to gain electoral registration..Again. For the second time in two years, Australia’s division of the Pirate Party has failed key registration requirements determining its elegibility to contest major elections, with the group noting this week that it had fallen short of required numbers for the Australian Capital Territory’s upcoming poll.
Vodafone are taking steps to increase coverage for Sydney train commuters. Vodafone customers travelling in the Wynyard North Tunnel, the Central to Town Hall tunnels and Town Hall to Wynyard tunnels will get extra coverage starting from today. North Sydney and Chatswood tunnels to and from Central are also set to receive a boost.
Games.on.net has been relaunched after merging with iiNet's 3FL games network. The single games portal offers unmetered downloads, gaming and viewing for Internode, iiNet, Westnet, and Netspace customers. Gamers now have access to more than eight terabytes of files, patches, demos and content on 600 servers to power favourites including Battlefield 3, Team Fortress 2 and Modern Warfare 3.
Google is holding a summit in Los Angeles aimed at finding ways to combat illicit networks that are used for illegal activity. This summit aims to break down those silos by bringing together a full-range of stakeholders, from survivors of organ trafficking, sex trafficking and forced labor to government officials, dozens of engineers, tech leaders and product managers from Google and beyond. Through the summit, which lasts until Wednesday, we hope to discover ways that technology can be used to expose and disrupt these networks as a whole—and to put some of these ideas into practice.
Data Retention, Surveillance and Privacy
(1 Comments)
(link)
Wednesday, 18-July-2012 02:05:56 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
A few people have expressed concerns about some proposed changes to digital communications and data retention in Australia.
Firstly, from Silicon_Angel: The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security is seeking public submissions in response to reforms proposed increasing and expanding surveillance, collection, retention and access to digital communications and data, including mandatory recording by ISPs of all Internet activity by their customers and storage of these logs for two years, making it a criminal offence to refuse to decrypt data upon request by law enforcement, giving ASIO the power and right to ‘disrupt’ a target computer for the purpose of gaining access to it, or even access to ‘third party’ computers on the way to the target computers, and other changes designed to streamline and simplify the process of warrant acquisition to authorise surveillance and acquisition of communications and data. Submissions close August 6, which is not far away!
More from Gaakor: The Federal Parliament has rejected a number of requests from interested parties to extend the short deadline for submissions to an inquiry into a wide-reaching package of legislative reforms proposed by the Federal Government which the Greens have slammed as constituting a “systematic erosion of privacy” in Australia. - This is serious I would really appreciate OCAU encouraging people to call their MP's and make a submission to the senate committee before time runs out, because the government is trying to rush this through - before it's on peoples radars it will be LAW.
Mark Newton's comments are here. If rational minds were in charge, last week’s announcement by the government of an inquiry into potential reforms of National Security Legislation would be seen as an admission of failure and incompetence from Australia’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies. ... Every year they make nebulous hand-waving gestures about undefined, secret threats that will befall Australia if they don’t get their own way, and every year spineless politicians give them everything they say they need.
GetUp have published their concerns and a petition. Would you copy ASIO in on every personal email you send, include them in every conversation you have with a friend online, or send them your personal photos and videos? Soon, you may not have a choice. ... Right now the Government is considering the most sweeping and radical changes to Australia's surveillance and intelligence laws since the establishment of the original powers in 1979.
I've made a thread with more info here.
Tuesday Morning Reviews
(0 Comments)
(link)
Tuesday, 17-July-2012 09:13:08 (GMT +10) - by booj
|
Graphics Cards:
PNY GeForce GTX 670 on Bjorn3D.
Gigabyte Radeon HD 7870 2GB OC on APH Networks.
Motherboards & CPU's:
ASRock X79 Extreme6 GB on Vortez.
EVGA Z77 FTW Intel Z77 Motherboard on Legit Reviews.
Gigabyte G1.Sniper3 Z77 Motherboard on HotHardware.
ASUS F1 A75-V EVO FM1 ATX Motherboard on Futurelooks.
Cooling:
Arctic Freezer i30 CPU Cooler on Hardware Secrets.
Noctua NH-L12 CPU Cooler on t-break.
Thermaltake Frio Advanced Heatsink on Frostytech.
Storage:
ADATA SP900 Premiere Pro 128GB SSD on Techreaction.
Kingston DataTraveler Elite 3.0 USB 3.0 Flash Drive on TechARP.
OCZ Vertex 4 256GB SSD on Overclockers Club.
OCZ Vertex 4 SSD on HardwareLOOK.
OCZ Vertex 4 256GB SSD on ThinkComputers.
Cases:
SilverStone Fortress SST-FT03B Mini Chassis on TweakTown.
BitFenix Colossus Venom Edition Quick Look on t-break.
Silverstone GD07 HTPC chassis on Guru3D.
Antec Three Hundred Two Mid-Tower PC Chassis on eTeknix.
Cooler Master Elite 120 Advanced mini ITX on Pro-Clockers.
Power Supplies:
Corsair GS800 PSU on Rbmods.
be quiet! Dark Power Pro 10 850-watt on TweakTown.
be quiet! Dark Power Pro 10 850 W PSU on Hardware Secrets.
Prebuilt & Mobile:
Apple MacBook Air 13" Mid-2012 on Techspot.
HTC One S Smartphone on t-break.
Lenovo ThinkCentre M92p on TechReviewSource.
HTC Desire C Android Smartphone on HardwareHeaven.
Input Etc:
TTeSports MEKA mechanical gaming keyboards (MEKA, MEKA G1 and MEKA G-unit) on Metku.
CM Storm Quick Fire Pro Mechanical Gaming Keyboard on techPowerUp.
Misc:
GeIL PC3-19200 2400MHz 16GB EVO CORSA Quad Channel Memory Kit on Madshrimps.
Interesting Forum Threads
(0 Comments)
(link)
Monday, 16-July-2012 21:18:27 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Here's a snapshot of what's going on in some of the forums. You can also find new interesting things you might have missed via the Who's Online page, the New Posts page and the Live forum view. Also try the Today's Posts link (find it on the Quick Links menu) and the handy Who Quoted Me? feature.
82" wide Screen bezel-less Hirez gaming! Yes its now possible! in Video Cards & Monitors.
RAM Disk in Storage & Backup.
Review: Audioengine A5 vs. Aktimate Mini in PC Audio.
Google TV makes its way to Australia in Audio Visual.
The Sneaky Lie Your Apple Devices Are Telling You in Apple iOS (OS & Devices)
New 10.6-inch Microsoft Surface tablet(s) announced in Mobile Phones & Devices.
Windows Phone 8 (Apollo) in Mobile Phones & Devices.
Images of alleged new PlayStation 3 Super Slim model leak in Sony Consoles.
Red Hat CEO Is Ready To Squash Microsoft, VMware, and Oracle in Other Operating Systems.
18 Life Changing Ways To Have Bacon in Geek Food.
Preferred flight search websites? in Holidays & Travel.
Operation "Get Mantis" in Pets & Animals.
Hobby ideas in Other Toys.
How did he do it? in Photography & Video.
Public Place, but Private Property in Photography & Video.
You got a studio set up? Small, big? Show us how it looks like! in Photography & Video.
Delivered photos to clients but doesnt work on their computer in Photography & Video.
Melbourne International Film Festival 2012 (Aug 2 - 19) in Entertainment.
Fairfax announces shakeup - close printers, erect online paywalls in Current Events.
US launches operation SeaFox in Persian Gulf in Current Events.
New French law makes alcohol tests mandatory in every car in Motoring.
Shocking Sharehouses: tell us your horror stories! in The Pub.
Monday Lunchtime
(6 Comments)
(link)
Monday, 16-July-2012 12:42:12 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Matcat sent word that nVidia's forum has been hacked. In addition to asserting that all accounts will have their password changed to a temporary value and that password sent to the registered email address, the Nvidia announcement makes one additional smart suggestion: "As a precautionary measure, we strongly recommend that you change any identical passwords that you may be using elsewhere."
Billabong's website has suffered the same fate, but they apparently stored passwords in plain text. According to a dump from their password database, Billabong stored all passwords in plain text - presumably this made it easier to tell a user what their password was if they'd forgotten it. It also made life very easy for any hackers who wished to masquerade as the users on the site.
Canberra is defending an unpopular plan to require telcos to store data. Mr Bradbury accepted the plan would be controversial. ''When you're talking about balancing the need for security agencies to have access to this information, with the need to protect the privacy interests of individuals, it's an incredibly difficult balancing act.'' More than 90 per cent of almost 9000 people who responded to a Fairfax readers poll yesterday voiced their opposition to mandatory data retention.
From Trevor68: Ravaged is a new Post-Apocalyptic Shooter that is currently in closed beta. I basically have enough beta keys to satisfy as many OCAU members as would like to give it a go, so thought it might be worth a mention on the news page.
Timbot spotted this 3-part Star Trek series called "Of Gods and Men". It seems to have been made a few years ago, and while it features a few of the big name actors of the official series, this seems to be a B-grade fan flick type affair. Still, I watched about 10 minutes and will probably see the rest - it's worth checking out if you're starved of new Star Trek content. :)
Speaking of which, Richard Branson has confirmed Virgin Galactic will take him to space next year. Richard Branson has long said that he'd be on board Virgin Galactic's first commercial space tourism flight, and he's now confirmed that will take place sometime next year with his two adult children along for the ride (a bit of a delay from the company's original 2011 target). That trip will of course be made with the company's SpaceShipTwo craft, which has already completed a number of test flights, and which is capable of flying 100 kilometers (or just over 60 miles) above the Earth for a planned two and a half hour flight with five minutes of weightlessness.
Finally, Simon sent in this sneak preview - seems legit? Smaller than I expected..
Saturday Afternoon Reviews
(0 Comments)
(link)
Saturday, 14-July-2012 16:01:47 (GMT +10) - by booj
|
Motherboards & CPU's:
Gigabyte G1.Sniper M3 on Techreaction.
ASUS Maximus V Extreme on t-break.
Biostar TPower TZ77XE4 on Bjorn3D.
ASRock Z77 Extreme6 Intel Z77 Motherboard on Think Computers.
Gigabyte G1.Sniper M3 on techPowerUp.
Graphics Cards:
Sapphire Radeon HD 7870 FleX on Neoseeker.
Custom NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670/680 Round Up on HotHardware.
Gigabyte GTX 670 Windforce 3X OC 2GB on eTeknix.
Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition TOXIC 6GB on TweakTown.
Zotac GTX 670 AMP! on XSReviews.
AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition on Legit Reviews.
Audio:
Corsair Vengeance 2000 Wireless Headset on Neoseeker.
Wicked Audio Solus Headphones on TestFreaks.
Monitors:
Viewsonic VA2231wm-LED on TechReviewSource.
Achieva Shimian 27" Monitor on PC Perspective.
Input etc:
Roccat Savu Mid Size Gaming Mouse on eTeknix.
CM Storm Sentinel Advance 2 on Hardware Heaven.
Roccat Isku Illuminated Gaming Keyboard on Legit Reviews.
Thrustmaster T-Wireless Duo Pack PC/PS3 Controllers on Madshrimps.
Cases:
BitFenix Prodigy mini-ITX on Vortez.
Xilence Interceptor Pro on techPowerUp.
Corsair Vengeance C70 on Neoseeker.
SilverStone Grandia GD08 on Computing on Demand.
Lian Li PC-V700-B Mid-Tower on TweakTown.
Misc:
Western Digital Red 3TB SATA SOHO NAS Drive on PC Perspective.
Corsair AF and SP Series Fans on Overclockers Club.
be quiet! Dark Power Pro P10 750W PSU on NikKTech.
Two Australian overclockers, SniperOZ and Uncle Fester have provisionally booked themselves tickets to the MSI Master Overclocking Arena Grand Final to be held in late September in Taiwan. The boys put up some very strong scores against tough competition and took out two of the four places available in the Asia Pacific region. Each will choose a team mate to go up against 14 other teams from around the world. Well done lads!
Betaworks is buying Digg for the rather paltry sum of $500,000. Betaworks is acquiring the Digg brand, website, and technology, but not its employees. Digg will be folded into News.me, Betaworks' social news aggregator. This is not the outcome people expected for Digg. In 2008, Google was reportedly set to buy it for $200 million.
Spies to seek access to internet data? Australia's intelligence community is proposing the biggest shake-up in more than a decade. On the wish list is a plan to force telecommunications providers operating in Australia to retain users' phone and internet data for up to two years. Other plans include allowing security agencies to get more access to social media sites like Facebook, and expanding powers for ASIO agents. Thanks Gaakor!
Xbit labs have an interesting article about choosing the best DDR3 SDRAM for Ivy Bridge. Processor microarchitectures continue developing, and the DDR3 SDRAM frequencies continue growing. However, does it really make sense to use high-speed memory with contemporary Ivy Bridge processors? To answer this question we analyzed the influence of memory frequency and latencies on the performance of a contemporary LGA 1155 platform.
Hardware Secrets have a detailed article covering everything you need to know about PCI Express. Since the first PC, launched in 1981, the computer has had expansion slots where you can install additional cards to add capabilities not available on the motherboard of the computer. Currently, the most common type of expansion slot available is called PCI Express. In this tutorial, you will learn everything you need to know about this kind of connection: how it works, versions, slots, and more.
Microsoft have released a 'fix' for a Windows Gadgets security vulnerability that simply disables the entire feature. Microsoft has warned that a Gadgets feature included in Vista and later versions of Windows could allow attackers to hijack end-user machines and has taken the unusual step of issuing a temporary update that allows it to be completely disabled.
There are indications that MSI is preparing to enter the SSD Market. While the PC enthusiast community know MSI more to be the people behind some quality motherboards, graphics cards, and notebooks, apart from a few lesser known product lines, the Taiwanese company has a few completely undocumented products. Solid State Drives (SSDs) will soon be MSI's newest frontier, according to no less than LSI-SandForce.
AMD announced their most recent revenue results a couple of days back. Chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices has warned that its second-quarter revenue would be down about 11 per cent from the prior quarter due to softer-than-expected sales in China and Europe and a weak consumer-buying environment, knocking its shares down 6 per cent. The company had previously forecast second-quarter revenue would increase 3 per cent from the first quarter, plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are busy developing a holographic, glasses-free 3D TV. The masterful engineers at the MIT are busy working on a type of 3D display capable of presenting that elusive third dimension without any eye gear. We say “elusive” because what you’ve been presented at your local cinema (with 3D glasses) or on your Nintendo 3DS console (with your naked eye) pales in comparison to what these guys and gals are trying to develop: a truly immersive 3D experience, not unlike a hologram, that changes perspective as you move around.
Friday again!
     
     
     
     
And if you're after more, check out this Wiki page which lists ALL "misc pics" news posts from the archive.
Here's some yummy threads from our Geek Recipes forum:
Thursday Morning Reviews
(0 Comments)
(link)
Thursday, 12-July-2012 06:46:01 (GMT +10) - by booj
|
Graphics Cards:
Sapphire HD 7870 Flex GHz Edition 2 GB on techPowerUp.
MSI R7850 Power Edition OC on Ninjalane.
Cases:
Corsair Vengeance C70 Case on Benchmark Reviews.
Rosewill Blackhawk Ultra on PureOverclock.
Thermaltake Armor Revo Full-Tower on eTeknix.
Xilence Interceptor Full Tower on Vortez.
AZZA Genesis 9000 Full Tower PC Case on Legit Reviews.
Storage:
MyDigitalSSD Bullet Proof 3 SATA III 512GB SSD on The SSD Review.
Plextor M5S 256GB SATA 3 SSD on The SSD Review.
Seagate GoFlex Satellite on TechwareLabs.
Input etc:
Roccat Savu Gaming Mouse on Madshrimps.
SteelSeries SRW-S1 Steering Wheel on Vortez.
Razer SWTOR Keyboard on t-break.
Speedlink Libera Bluetooth Keyboard on Rbmods.
Cyborg M.M.O. 7 Gaming Mouse on ThinkComputers.
Cooling:
Deepcool Fiend Shark CPU Cooler on Hardware Secrets.
Gelid Icy Vision-A GPU Cooler on HardwareHeaven.
Thermaltake Water 2.0 Performer and Water 2.0 Pro on Overclockers Club.
Thermaltake Water2.0 Pro AIO Liquid Cooler on TweakTown.
Audio:
Plantronics Voyager Pro UC 2 Headset on XSReviews.
ASUS Xonar Phoebus soundcard on Guru3D.
Misc:
HP Pavillion Phoenix PC on t-break.
Kingston HyperX T1 DDR3-1866 on PureOverclock.
Seasonic X-Series 750 W PSU on Hardware Secrets.
HTC EVO 4G LTE Android Smartphone on HotHardware.
The online music service Pandora is now allowing Australian users to connect to the site since being blocked in 2007. The service that once closed its doors to international activity has for some reason opened them once again, with Australians now able to access the service called the “Music Genome Project”. Thanks Docsis!
The company behind $99 OUYA gaming console have raised over two million dollars in the first 24 hours of a Kickstart funding drive to raise money for the launch, easily beating the $950k target. While the world waits for new game consoles from Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, a newcomer plans to take them on with a $99 Android-based set-top box called Ouya. The Ouya has specs that are on par with high-end Android phones and tablets, including a quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3 processor, 1 GB of RAM and 8 GB of storage. It outputs 1080p video through an HDMI slot, uses Bluetooth 4.0 and USB 2.0 for connecting external devices and includes a wireless controller. There's a discussion thread in the forums here.
Talk about embarrassing.. MoJoMaN let us know about a story involving a federal government contractor that was paid more than $1 million to deliver e-security alert services to Australians and then lost 8000 subscribers' personal information in the postal system. AusCERT, which was paid $1,199,484.52 by the federal government to run staysmartonline.gov.au between April 29 2008 and April 29 2012*, lost subscribers' data after using Australia Post to send it on a DVD to the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy (DBCDE) on April 11 when its contract to run the alerts service expired. Oops..
On July 18th the first photo on the web turns 20. Next Wednesday, July 18th, the photograph at the center of that image — a homemade promotional shot for Les Horribles Cernettes, a comedy band based at the CERN laboratory near Geneva — will turn 20 years old. Despite the artifact’s world-historical significance, its full story has never been told. Few enthusiasts of art or photography or technology will be marking its 20th birthday, in no small part because it’s such an odd and un-artistic image.
The new Telecommunications Consumer Protection (TCP) code, which was today accepted by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has some new rules to protect consumers from mobile and internet bill shock. Internet and mobile phone customers will get a warning when they hit 50pc of their monthly usage allowance under tough new consumer protection rules for telecoms companies. The new Telecommunications Consumer Protection (TCP) code, most of which will be enforced from September 1, will act as a rulebook for telcos on how to engage with customers, forcing the companies to make radical changes to the way they market to and bill users.
Hardware Heaven have an interview with AMD's Senior Manager of Technology Marketing Sasa Marinkovic. They talk about APU's, Trinity and Ultrabooks.
The Tech Report have an article looking at the state of triple screen gaming. The stars would seem to be aligned for triple-head gaming to really take off. To handicap its chances, we rigged up a three-screen array and played a stack of the latest games on a couple of high-end graphics cards: Asus' Radeon HD 7970 DirectCU TOP and Gigabyte's GeForce GTX 680 OC. Both cards have juiced-up clock speeds, beefy custom coolers, and display outputs galore. Keep reading to see how they fared in our look at the state of surround gaming on the PC.
Intel plans to invest US $4.1b in lithography equipment developer ASML. When Intel goes looking for new chip manufacturing technology to invest in, the company doesn’t play for pennies. Chipzilla has announced a major investment and partial purchase of lithography equipment developer ASML. The goal is to bring 450mm wafer technology and extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUVL) within reach despite the challenges facing both deployments.
Google Inc. is close to a deal to pay $22.5 million to settle charges related to its surreptitious bypassing of the privacy settings of millions of Apple Inc. users, according to officials briefed on the settlement terms. The fine is expected to be the largest penalty ever levied on a single company by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. It offers the latest sign of the FTC's stepped-up approach to policing online privacy violations, coming just six months after The Wall Street Journal reported on Google's practices.
Anthrox came across this youtube video of a bass guitar built from a Commodore 64!
Lastly, check out this awesome video of rally driver Ken Block as he turns San Francisco into a gymkhana playground.
Tuesday Morning Reviews
(0 Comments)
(link)
Tuesday, 10-July-2012 09:52:55 (GMT +10) - by booj
|
Graphics Cards:
Sapphire Radeon HD 7770 OC Vapor-X 1GB on eTeknix.
Sapphire HD 7770 Vapor-X GHz Edition on Motherboards.org
HIS Radeon HD 7950 ICEQ Turbo on Guru3d.
Motherboards & CPU's:
GIGABYTE G1.Sniper 3 Motherboard on Bjorn3D.
ASUS E45M1-I Motherboard on Techreaction.
Power Supplies:
NZXT HALE82N 550W and 750W on Think Computers.
Corsair GS800 V2 800 W on techPowerUp.
Portable & Prebuilt:
Samsung Series 9 13" Notebook on t-break.
Dell Inspiron 14z Ultrabook on HotHardware.
HP Omni 27 Quad All-In-One on Techspot.
HP Envy 14 Spectre Ultrabook on PC Perspective.
Samsung Galaxy S III 16GB Smartphone on Legit Reviews.
Storage:
Corsair Accelerator 30GB & 60GB on Overclockers Club.
OCZ RevoDrive X2 SSD on HardwareLOOK.
Cooling:
Phanteks PH-TC14PE CPU Cooler on Hardcore Ware.
Cooler Master X6 Elite CPU Cooler on Custom PC Review.
Audio:
CM Storm Sonuz Gaming Headset on Techreaction.
Kworld Dark Pyramid D15u+ Speaker on eTeknix.
ASUS DGX, DSX, & Xonar ROG Phoebus Sound Cards on [H]ardOCP.
Behringer Guitar Link UCG102 on TestFreaks.
Misc:
Patriot Viper Extreme Division 2 RAM on Techreaction.
BitDefender Total Security 2013 on TechReviewSource.
Razer Naga 2012 Gaming Mouse at Hardware Heaven.
Wesena ITX5 Mini-ITX HTPC Chassis on Missing Remote.
EyeLikeCarrots spotted this story about a loss of data from Australia's Stay Smart Online Alert service. As part of the expiry of contract handover process, the original contractor advised that it copied its SSO Alert Service subscriber database onto a DVD and, on 11 April 2012, posted this DVD to the Department using Australia Post’s express post service. Unfortunately, this DVD was never received by the Department. The original contractor has informed the Department that information on the missing DVD included subscribers’: usernames; email addresses; memorable phrases; and passwords which are unreadable (as cryptographic hash).
NASA have released a new Mars Panorama, which is 23096 x 7981 pixels. From fresh rover tracks to an impact crater blasted billions of years ago, a newly completed view from the panoramic camera (Pancam) on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity shows the ruddy terrain around the outcrop where the long-lived explorer spent its most recent Martian winter. All of which reminded me to check up on the other rover, Spirit, which now seems to be officially dead. Awww.
ArsTechnica have some good news on copyright limitation. Let me use an analogy to explain why this is, nevertheless, a big deal. For USTR to publicly embrace limitations and exceptions as "an important part of the copyright ecosystem" is the equivalent of The Pope saying: "in some cases, birth control is a good thing because it allows married couples to have sex without procreation, deepening their emotional bond with one another."
Here's a newish feature of Google, the Knowledge Graph. Basically it takes a more intelligent approach to search results, giving you related information and not just exact matches. Discover answers to questions you never thought to ask, powered by the Knowledge Graph.
Samsung's Galaxy S3 has fared well in battery tests. The average talk time of the 101 phones Which? has tested was a meagre 315 minutes – slightly over five hours. But some phones, such as the HTC Sensation XL and Motorola Gleam fell below even this low benchmark. The HTC lasted just 272 minutes, around four and half hours, while the Gleam’s 135 minutes (2 hours, 15 mins) is just embarrassing, and it’s not even a smartphone.
NikKTech have a 22-way mousepad comparison. Now for the past 5 or so months I’ve been gathering pretty much every single gaming oriented mousepad i can find in the market in an effort to see which offers the best bang for your buck and today after all these months of testing i can finally release this comparison.
mpot spotted this clever teacher video which pretty much needs no explanation.
Today's timewaster is build with Chrome from ob1. Seems to be mix of Lego and Google Maps which despite the name doesn't seem to require their browser.
Sunday Morning Reviews
(0 Comments)
(link)
Sunday, 8-July-2012 06:37:40 (GMT +10) - by booj
|
Graphics Cards:
Zotac GTX 680 on XSReviews.
Sapphire HD 7950 FleX Dual-X Edition 3GB on Overclockers Club.
HIS Radeon HD 7870 IceQ X Turbo on Rage 3D.
Motherboards & CPU's
ASUS RoG Maximus V Formula Z77 on Hardware Heaven.
EVGA Z77 FTW on Guru3D.
ASUS Maximus V Extreme on Ocaholic.
Cooling:
Thermaltake WATER2.0 Pro CPU Cooler on Hardware Secrets.
Thermaltake Water2.0 Performer AIO CPU Cooler on TweakTown.
Portable & Prebuilt:
Dell XPS 13 Ultrabook on Futurelooks.
Lenovo IdeaPad Y480 on PC Perspective.
SHUTTLE XS36V Barebone on Fanless Tech.
Cases:
Corsair Obsidian 550D Mid-tower on TechwareLabs.
Lian Li PC-V355-B Mini Tower on TweakTown.
Xclio Touch 767 Mid Tower on Vortez.
SilverStone Precision PS07 MicroATX on SilentPCReview.
Storage:
Corsair Force 3 240GB SSD Laptop Kit on Pro-Clockers.
OCZ Vertex 4 256GB SSD on Bjorn3D.
Misc:
Nexus SM-5000 Silent Mouse on Rbmods.
Netgear WNDR4500 N900 Wireless Router on Legit Reviews.
SoundWave SW50 Bluetooth Speaker Phone on TestFreaks.
Kingston MobileLite G3 USB 3.0 Memory Card Reader on Legit Reviews.
Parrot AR.Drone 2.0 on t-break.
Thousands of Australian internet users are expected to be knocked offline on Monday when the impact of a virus released a year ago will be felt. All users are advised to visit dns-ok.gov.au to check if their computers are infected. The virus, dubbed "DNSChanger", gave the hackers control over the computers, by changing internet access settings on infected computers. Until now those computers have been able to rely on dummy servers set up by the FBI to continue accessing the internet. The FBI will turn off those servers at 2 pm Australian time next Monday.
More information can be found on the FBI website including details about the November 2011 arrests of six Estonian nationals who stand accused of running the sophisticated ring. There's also a discussion thread in the forums here.
Gunna let us know about criticism of Telstra for "stalking" millions of Next G mobile phone users by sending a third party in Canada a list of websites they visited. Geoff Huston, the chief scientist of regional internet registry Asia-Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC) and a former Telstra employee, has described in detail why he thinks Telstra broke the law when it was revealed just over a week ago that the telco was sending the URLs its smartphone customers were visiting to a third party for a new web filtering product.
WikiLeaks has started publishing 2.5 million emails from Syrian political figures, ministries and associated companies. The emails date from August 2006 to March 2012 and come from 680 “Syria-related entities”, including the Ministries of Presidential Affairs, Foreign Affairs, Finance, Information, Transport and Culture, WikiLeaks said.
TechReviewSource pose the question: Is social media making us socially awkward? Facebook and other social media sites have become an integral part of our everyday lives. It has become a way we interact with friends and family, perhaps at the loss of more traditional face-to-face interactions. Has social media made us socially awkward? This infographic explores that very question.
Melbourne gamers might want to make a trip to Federation square to check out the Game Masters Exhibition. The aesthetic and cultural history of videogames is finally being recognised as a major contributor to contemporary culture by some of the leading art galleries around the world. The exhibition, on show until October 28, profiles the work of over 30 leading game designers and features over 125 playable games. Thanks Tekin!
The United Nations has passed a resolution supporting freedom of expression on the Internet. It affirmed that “the same rights that people have offline must also be protected online, in particular freedom of expression, which is applicable regardless of frontiers and through any media of one’s choice.”
Scientists at the California Nanosystems Institute have successfully produced graphene transistors that can operate up to 427 Ghz. Our study defines a unique pathway to large-scale fabrication of high-performance graphene transistors, and holds significant potential for future application of graphene-based devices in ultra–high-frequency circuits.
Apparently there has been an unusual spike in the number of BMWs stolen in the UK this year due to security vulnerabilities in the cars diagnostic systems. The cars are being stolen without activating car alarms or immobilizers. The suspected method used involves the use of devices that plug into the car's OBD port and can program blank key fobs, leaving owners with keys to missing cars.
Some more details about Mozilla's upcoming mobile OS have been released. Domingo demonstrated the latest version of the OS on an unbranded 2.5in screen device, showing games, contacts lists, and navigation all created using HTML5. The home screen is similar to other mobile OSes, displaying apps in a grid pattern - although the icons are rounded to mimic the Firefox logo.
Thanks to Jon, mitsimonsta, metamorphosis and Mark this week!
     
     
     
     
And if you're after more, check out this Wiki page which lists ALL "misc pics" news posts from the archive.
Friday Afternoon Reviews
(0 Comments)
(link)
Friday, 6-July-2012 13:53:21 (GMT +10) - by booj
|
Motherboards & CPU's:
MSI Z77A-GD65 on XbitLabs.
MSI Z77A-GD80 (Intel Z77) Motherboard with Thunderbolt on TweakTown.
Graphics Cards:
Zotac GeForce GTX 680 AMP! Edition on XbitLabs.
Nvidia GeForce GTX 670 in 2-Way and 3-Way SLI Configurations on XbitLabs.
ASUS GTX 670 DirectCu II TOP on Hardware Canucks.
Storage:
Synology DS412+ NAS on techPowerUp.
Corsair 30GB Caching SSD on HotHardware.
Akitio Taurus Mini Super-S LCM RAID Enclosure on ThinkComputers.
Crucial Adrenaline Solid State Cache on eTeknix.
Input etc:
Genius GX Gaming DeathTaker MMO/RTS Professional Gaming Mouse on TweakTown.
Genius Imperator Pro Gaming Keyboard on Benchmark Reviews.
Cooler Master Storm Sentinel Advance II Mouse on VR-Zone.
Portable & Mobile:
Google Nexus 7 Tablet on TechSpot.
Lenovo IdeaPad U310 Ultrabook on TechReviewSource.
Audio:
Audyssey Lower East Side media speaker system on NikkTech.
ARCTIC Sound S362 speakers on Vortez.
Polk CHT 500 SurroundBar on Gaming Nexus.
Cooler Master Storm Sonuz Gaming Headset on Ninjalane.
Sennheiser HD 558 headphones on techreport.
Misc:
Seasonic S12II Bronze 430 W PSU on Hardware Secrets.
Phanteks PH-TC14CS C-Type CPU Cooler on Legit Reviews.
Sharkoon T28 Mid-Tower case on eTeknix.
Cooler Master ARC Stand for Macbook and iPad on OCIA.
Thursday Afternoon Reviews
(2 Comments)
(link)
Thursday, 5-July-2012 14:23:02 (GMT +10) - by booj
|
Graphics Cards:
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 OC on Legion Hardware.
MSI GeForce GTX 670 Power edition OC on Guru3D.
AMD Catalyst 12.6 Windows 7 Driver Analysis on TweakTown.
ASUS Radeon HD 7870 DirectCU II TOP on [H]ardocp.
Motherboards & CPU's
Gigabyte G1.Sniper M3 LGA 1155 MATX on PC Perspective.
ASUS P8Z77-V Intel Z77 Express LGA 1155 on techPowerUp.
AMD FX-8120 CPU on Madshrimps.
Memory:
G.Skill Trident 2400MHz 8GB DDR3 Dual Channel Memory Kit on Futurelooks.
G.Skill Trident 8GB DDR3-2400 on Pure Overclock.
Cases:
Corsair Vengeance C70 on Vortez.
Corsair Vengeance C70 on eTeknix.
Cooler Master HAF XM Mid-Tower Case on Hardware Heaven.
Cooler Master CM Storm Sentinel Advance II & CM Storm Speed-RXL on Neoseeker.
Phobya WaCoolIT Bench Table on PureOverclock.
Portable:
Alienware M17x R4 (2012) Review, Ivy Bridge and Kepler Refresh on HotHardware.
Acer Aspire V3-571G-9435 Notebook on Anandtech.
Storage:
ADATA 500 Series S510 120GB SSD on eTeknix.
Kingston HyperX 3k 240GB SSD on Pro-Clockers.
Power Supplies:
Be Quiet Dark Power Pro 10 850w on techPowerUp.
Be Quiet Dark Power Pro 10 850w on Hexus.
350-450W Roundup: 11 Cheap PSUs on Anandtech.
OCZ Fatal1ty 1000W PSU on VR-Zone.
Misc:
Kensington Absolute Power Dual USB Wall Charger on NikKTech.
Phanteks PH-TC14PE CPU Cooler on Funky Kit Review.
Edimax EW-7438RPn N300 Universal Wi-Fi Extender on ThinkComputers.
Roccat Taito Mouse Pads on eTeknix.
There’s plenty of mainstream media coverage of the probable discovery of the elusive Higgs Boson.
BBC, CNN, NYTimes, SMH, The Australian and the CERN Website itself. There are plenty of videos on Youtube covering the discovery as well.
Cisco and Linksys have backpedaled after finding themselves in hot water. Outraged customers complained about having their privacy compromised after being forced to sign up for their new cloud service. To make matters worse, the Connect Cloud service came with a supplemental privacy policy that explicitly allowed Cisco to peek at a user's "internet history," "traffic" and "other related information." If Cisco discovered you had used your router for "pornographic or offensive purposes" or to violate "intellectual property rights," it reserved the right to shut down your cloud account and effectively cut you off from your router.
Chris McMahon pointed out that The Court Of Justice of the European Union has just ruled that people should be able to resell downloaded games. In an environment where publishers are trying to destroy basic consumer rights like the ability to resell physical products you’ve paid for, this could be one heck of a turnaround for customers. And that’s no matter what it might say in the EULAs. This could have absolutely enormous implications on how services like Steam, Origin, GamersGate and the like work, and finally restore some rights back to the gamer.
Alch sent in a good example of why it's important to secure your wireless network. Here’s a reminder that you should never, ever, ever have a Wi-Fi network without a password on it. Police in Indiana called up the SWAT team to raid an 18-year-old gir’s house by smashing her front window and throwing two flashbangs inside because of her open Wi-Fi network. What the hell? It all started because some people who signed on to the innocent girl’s open Wi-Fi network were making specific threats about the police.
Would you even want to give up control of your car? Ford predicts self-driving, traffic-reducing cars by 2017 According to Ford the self-driving car will be here within five years, using technologies available today. The smart car will take over your morning commute on clogged freeways, improving your speed and reducing fuel consumption. The technology concept, known as Traffic Jam Assist, uses adaptive cruise control, lane keep assist, and the sensors from its active park assist.
A research firm has released a report predicting that tablet computers are expected to overtake notebook PCs by 2016. Overall mobile PC shipments including tablets will grow from 347 million in 2012 to over 809 million by 2017. Notebook PC shipments are expected to increase from 208 million in 2012 to 393 million by 2017, but tablet shipments are expected to grow from 121 million to 416 million in the same period.
Scientists have successfully overcome one of the obstacles in quantum computation by storing data on quantum bits (qubits) for about two seconds at room temperature. Many of the current systems utilize extremely complex and costly equipments to trap an individual electron or atom in a vacuum at absolute zero temperature. However, a team of researchers from Harvard University have solved the problem of working at normal temperature by using diamonds, which are atomically pure materials on Earth.
A post on the Windows Blog has revealed some details about upgrading to Windows 8. In a post on The Windows Blog (not to be confused with the Building Windows 8 blog), Brandon LeBlanc announces that Microsoft will be doing a Windows 8 upgrade promotion, where upgrades from Windows XP, Vista and 7 to Windows 8 Pro will cost just $39.99.
Nvidia have released a new beta driver. The 304.79 driver brings some decent performance increases and a new TXAA Anti Aliasing method. The Changelog is here.
Toshiba have been found guilty of LCD price fixing. The 10-member jury deliberated for less than two days before finding Toshiba liable to manufacturers for $17 million and to consumers for $70 million. U.S. antitrust laws allow overcharge damages to be tripled. However, the Japanese electronics giant said it doesn't anticipate paying anything toward the jury's fine because other defendants in the class-action lawsuit have already paid settlements that exceed the fine against Toshiba.
Wednesday Morning Reviews
(0 Comments)
(link)
Wednesday, 4-July-2012 01:13:40 (GMT +10) - by booj
|
Graphics Cards:
MSI GTX 680 Lightning 2GB on eTeknix.
ZOTAC GeForce GT 640 2 GB on techPowerUp.
Storage:
OCZ Vertex 4 256GB SSD Firmware 1.4.1.5 Testing on Tweaktown.
Crucial M4 SSD 128GB on Computing on Demand.
Super Talent USB 3.0 Express RC8 50GB Drive on Legit Reviews.
LSI SAS 9207-8i PCIe 3.0 HBA Controller on TheSSDReview.
Input etc:
Corsair Vengeance K60 & M60 FPS Keyboard & Mouse on Legit Reviews.
Ozone Radon Opto Mouse on TechwareLabs.
Razer Taipan Ambidextrous Gaming Mouse on Pro-Clockers.
Thermaltake Ladon Mousepad on Rbmods.
QPAD 5K LE Mouse on Vortez.
Coolers:
Noctua NH-U9B SE2 CPU Cooler on Hardware Secrets.
Spire TherMax Eclipse III "TME III" CPU Cooler on TweakTown.
Audio/Visual:
Optoma GT750E Projector on Gaming Nexus.
Cooler Master Storm Sonuz Gaming Headset on Pro-Clockers.
CM Storm Sonuz Gaming Headset on ThinkComputers.
Cases:
BitFenix Shinobi XL Window Full-Tower Case on Bjorn3D.
SilverStone Grandia SST-GD07B HTPC Enclosure on Benchmark Reviews.
Thermaltake Armor Revo - Snow Edition on Techreaction.
Lian Li The Hammer PC-90 Full-Tower Chassis on eTeknix.
MSI IN-602 Stealth Mid-Tower on TweakTown.
Rosewill THOR V2-W Full Tower Case on Modders-Inc.
Sentey Halcon GS-6050 II Case on Hardware Secrets.
Portable & Mobile:
HTC One V Smartphone on t-break.
Google Nexus 7 on TechReviewSource.
Sony VAIO E15 Notebook on TechReviewSource.
Misc:
Ivy Bridge i7 vs Bulldozer FX @ 4.6GHz on VR-Zone.
Antec Bias LED Lighting Kit on Pro-Clockers.
Here's some reviews and projects from people in the forums:
Tuesday Afternoon
(0 Comments)
(link)
Tuesday, 3-July-2012 16:56:32 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
GIGABYTE are asking OCAU members for feedback on EasyTune 6, their overclocking software. Any suggestions are good suggestions whether it's a facelift, functionality, change nothing or anything else you have in mind. GIGABYTE want to make it better and give end users what they want!
Supplanter spotted more detail on the Copyright Act inquiry. The Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) has released the terms of reference for its inquiry into the Copyright Act. The ALRC inquiry will primarily deal with existing exceptions and statutory licences in the Copyright Act and attempt to determine whether they have kept pace with the digital environment or whether further exceptions should be introduced.
There's a bit of angst about a recent Cisco upgrade which seems to be forcing people to use a cloud configuration, and also has some worrying data-collection possibilities. More info here.
Gizmodo checked out some high-tech new WA Police Cars. In this brief video, we get a look at the touchscreen console at the centre of the vehicle’s dashboard that does everything from fire the sirens, right through to scanning registration plates to see if the driver in the car has a license or not.
Samsung's Galaxy Nexus has been banned in the USA, following on a ban on one of their tablet PCs. Apple and Samsung, the world's two largest consumer electronics corporations, are waging war through the courts of several countries, accusing each other of patent violations as they vie for supremacy in the mobile market. The decision on Friday by judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California, comes days after she placed a pre-trial ban on sales of Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1, a tablet computer that runs on Google's Android and competes with the iPad.
Google have given a preview of their Google Now personal assistant service. The service, which will roll out as part of the next update to Google's mobile operating system, will do things like remind an Android owner that they have a lunch date -- but also who it is with, how to get there and when they should leave, based on current traffic congestion. And based on your past Google searches, it will keep you up to date on flight information and sports scores.
Also new from Google is their Compute Engine. Run your large-scale computing workloads on Linux virtual machines hosted on Google's infrastructure.
A NZ judge has decided that the search warrants for Kim Dotcom and MegaUpload were unlawful. Dotcom faces an extradition hearing in August which will determine whether or not he is to fly to the US to face charges including copyright infringement and wire fraud relating to the file-sharing website Megaupload. Discussion continues here.
Brazilian prisoners can work time off their sentences by providing pedal power for streetlights in the town. The prison has offered to shave time off of prisoners' sentences if they'll charge batteries using special bikes and their own two legs.
AMD are claiming an increased focus on quality for their new Catalyst drivers. AMD Catalyst™ 12.6 represents a significant milestone in AMD’s driver development and planning. The list of resolved issues at the end of this post is certainly representative of our continued investment in quality, but it’s symbolic of a deeper systemic change. The truth is that our new driver cadence—releasing drivers as needed—gives us tremendous flexibility to provide releases that are worth upgrading to. By this I mean that you’ll begin to see meatier updates, with a single driver containing a number of fixes and enhancements that could have been deployed over several releases with our old schedule.
Video Cards:
HIS Radeon HD 7850 IceQ X TurboX 2GB in CrossFire on TweakTown.
Gainward GTX 670 Phantom 2GB SLI on Fudzilla.
Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 OC Dual-X fleX 3GB on eTeknix.
Storage:
Thecus N4800 4-Bay Battery Backup NAS on TweakTown.
Plextor M3 Pro 256Gb SSD on Anandtech.
OCZ Vertex 4 256GB SSD on Techspot.
ADATA Premier Pro SP900 128GB SSD @ Think Computers.
QNAP TS-412 NAS on Hardware.info.
LaCie 2big Thunderbolt 4TB External HDD on Hardware.info.
Coolers:
Noctua NH-L12 L-Type Low-Profile Cooler on OCIA.
Arctic Freezer 11 LP CPU Cooler on Bit-tech.
Motherboard & CPU:
ASUS Maximus V Formula on Guru3D.
ASUS Maximus V Extreme first look on VR-Zone.
MSI Z77-GD55 Motherboard on Pure Overclock.
Mobile:
D-Link DIR-505 All-in-One Mobile Companion on Test Freaks.
MacBook Air 13? Ultrabook Review and SSD Performance Analysis on The SSD Review.
Samsung Galaxy S III on t-break.
HTC One S Android Smartphone on Hardware Heaven.
Input:
Genius Imperator Pro Gaming Keyboard on Benchmark Reviews.
Cooler Master Storm Trigger Gaming Keyboard on Hardware Canucks.
CM Storm Speed-RX Mouse Mats on techPowerUp.
ROCCAT Savu Mouse on Vortez.
Misc:
Corsair Vengeance C70 Case on Overclockers Club.
Kanvus Virtuoso T5000 Graphic Design Tablet on t-break.
SteelSeries 7H Fnatic Edition Gaming Headset on Madshrimps.
G.Skill Trident X 2400MHz 8GB memory kit on Overclock3D.
Meelobee's Project Inverted
(0 Comments)
(link)
Sunday, 1-July-2012 21:13:33 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Check out this hugely detailed worklog of an amazing custom PC by Meelobee:
Click for the worklog!
The Sydney Morning Herald has a piece discussing the ongoing digital revolution. The digital revolution - and I think it's time we finally agree that it is a revolution and not an evolution, as many have called it over the past decade - will change our society as radically as did the introduction of print technology and its love child, the Industrial Revolution.
TIME stood still for a second on Sunday morning when the nation's timekeepers added a second to keep the atomic clock in sync with the Earth. Because the Earth is slowing down, time on the clock gets a little ahead of the time told by the sun, so we have to delay the clocks by adding an extra second,'' the National Measurement Institute's Bruce Warrington said.
If you’re a Telstra Next G customer, you’ll want to read this: Telstra yesterday admitted to tracking and recording the web history of its Next G network customers in order to help develop a new voluntary, paid filter service called Smart Controls.
Does the unveiling of Google's internet enabled glasses mean we are taking steps towards becoming cyborgs? No wonder. Google Glass may be hugely geeky and perhaps even mildly contraceptive, but it's the most convincing wearable computer I've seen. The reality isn't far removed from science fiction. Sooner or later, we're going to be cyborgs.
The code junkies out there may be interested in this detailed review of the Quake III source code. Since I had one week before my next contract I decided to finish my "cycle of id". After Doom, Doom Iphone, Quake1, Quake2, Wolfenstein iPhone and Doom3 I decided to read the last codebase I did not review yet: idTech3 the 3D engine that powers Quake III and Quake Live.
According to a US based web security firm, the number of serious web vulnerabilities dropped in 2011. Web Application Security gurus, WhiteHat Security, released a report this week that examines the severity and duration of Web application security related vulnerabilities discovered in 2011. When the numbers are stacked against those from similar reports published since 2007, the number of major vulnerabilities has fallen dramatically.
Linus Torvalds' recent barrage of criticism of Nvidia over their Linux support (or lack thereof) seems to have some merit, with a Chinese firm switching a 10 million GPU order from Nvidia to rival AMD. The problem is that the GeForce / Quadro driver from NVIDIA is only available for Linux x86 and x86_64 architectures, not MIPS or even ARM (only the Tegra driver is for ARMv7). NVIDIA refused to release the source-code to their high-performance feature-complete cross-platform driver to the Chinese, and it would cost them millions of dollars to port the code-base, so they went to AMD for their GPU order. Thanks Andrew
The Minitel, a 30 yr old French precursor to the current Internet we know and love has been permanently shut down. Once at the cutting edge of technology, the Minitel allowed users in France to check the news, search phone directories, buy train and plane tickets, make restaurant reservations and even take part in online sex chats long before similar services existed elsewhere. Thanks Asteroid
Many of you will have noticed that mechanical HDD prices remain well above what they were 12 months ago, prior to the Thailand floods. It appears as though the post-flood decline of hard drive prices is slowing Ever since the flooding, we've been waiting for the good old days to return. Indeed, we've been tracking mechanical hard drive prices since the flooding sent them skyward. Now, with a little help from the folks at Camelegg, we have even more data on the state of hard drive prices.
Adobe recently announced it would be pulling support for Flash based apps for upcoming Android operating systems. Beginning August 15th we will use the configuration settings in the Google Play Store to limit continued access to Flash Player updates to only those devices that have Flash Player already installed. Devices that do not have Flash Player already installed are increasingly likely to be incompatible with Flash Player and will no longer be able to install it from the Google Play Store after August 15th.
|
|
Advertisement:
All original content copyright James Rolfe.
All rights reserved. No reproduction allowed without written permission.
Interested in advertising on OCAU? Contact us for info.
|
|
